Next Thursday, October 15 the meeting entitled Strengthening the role of women in the agro-food security sector in Ethiopia will take place inside the ME and WE-Women for Expo space at 11, organized by UNIDO, the UN Organization for Industrial Development. In Africa, in fact, women represent the backbone of food production, providing up to 80% of the agricultural work. Particularly, in Ethiopia 60% of micro- and small food processing enterprises are run by women. These data show that fewer gender disparities could increase the Ethiopian GDP by 1.9 percentage points. Witnesses by some Ethiopian woman entrepreneurs attending the meeting The event, moderated by Matteo Landi (UNIDO Development Industrial and Youth Employment Expert) starts at 11 with the welcome statement by Monica Carcò (Chief, Investment and Technology Unit, UNIDO). At 11 the video entitled The role of women in the food security sector in Ethiopia will be projected and at 11:20 the report Women: adding value to value chains by Rossella Belli (gender expert, Italian Cooperation for Development) will be shown. From 11:30 to 12, some successful Ethiopian woman entrepreneurs will talk about their stories: Almaz Ayele, Muluemebet Gebeyehu Fentie, Emebet Mekonnen, Yordanos Goushe Girmay and Sara Yirga Woldegerima. Discussing the issues that foster the social-economic development in Ethiopia UNIDO acknowledges that women empowerment and gender equality play a major role in the inclusive and sustainable economic growth through the Country’s industrial development. UNIDO has investigated those that represent the obstacles preventing Ethiopian women to become successful entrepreneurs. Thus the themes discussed during the presentation will be: access to credit, technology in food security, the absence of political measures to reduce gender inequalities in the private sector, the scarce availability of data from local businesses and the absence of skilled staff. These are all key to foster the social and economic development of Ethiopia, create new workplaces and contribute to the diversification of the economy. Source: comunicaffe.com/the-meeting-strengthening-the-role-of-women-in-the-agro-food-security-sector-in-ethiopia-to-take-place-at-expo-2015-next-thursday/